EDITORIAL: Blagojevich appears to be the one to blame

Friday

Nov 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2007 at 2:40 AM

Jonie Larson, Regional Editor

Just about a year into his second term as governor, Rod Blagojevich has moved deeper and deeper into his bunker.

Mike Flannery, a reporter with CBS2 TV in Chicago, produced a rather lengthy piece this week to remind us all just how absent our governor has been. Flannery hung out at Blagojevich's Chicago home for several days over three weeks documenting that Blagojevich often never leaves the house to do his job.

Flannery also documented that Blagojevich is not big on public appearances or even face-to-face meetings with his own chief aides, let alone other government officials.
None of this really comes as a shock to us here in Springfield. Being the state capital, we tend to be much more attuned to the machinations of state government and its top officer. It took the rest of the state a while longer to figure out that this is one goofy governor.

The problem isn't really the goofiness - though that certainly doesn't help. The problem is that Blagojevich's style is not just goofy, it is ineffective and it has led to governmental gridlock. The word "disaster" seems too tame to describe this year's legislative session, which happens to not have ended yet.

We have spread the blame for this disaster when appropriate, but it's hard not to lay the lion's share of it at Blagojevich's door - not his office door, however, as he wouldn't likely be there.

We have given up trying to figure the guy out. In his past dealings with our editorial board, Blagojevich has always been generous with his time, showed a good grasp of the issues he came to discuss and was very affable and kind.
Sitting in a meeting with the man, you would wonder how he could so utterly screw up so many of his relationships with other government officials. But there is no doubt he has done just that.

Typically, as a person learns his or her job, performance of that job improves. That has not been the case with the Blagojevich administration. There was some promise in the early days. Blagojevich, who stressed cleaning up corruption in state government in his first gubernatorial campaign, actually managed to get a significant package of ethics legislation through the General Assembly in his first year in office. Since then this administration has proven to be ethics-deficient,

His administration also started down the road to making some badly needed revisions to the state pension system. But unlike that first ethics package, Blagojevich never saw the pension reforms through to conclusion. In fact, he eventually fell back to the tried and true method of simply taking a "pension holiday" in order to falsely prop up the state budget. That move hurt both the budget and put state pensions in a worse position.

As time progressed, Blagojevich has moved away from the hard work that got the ethics bill passed and has moved toward pandering for headlines and votes. He urged people to stick it to the feds and pharmaceutical companies by importing drugs illegally, he proposed a reading program where every kid in the state would get free books (though he never delivered on it), he ordered millions of dollars of flu vaccine the FDA refused to approve for importation. The expired vaccine eventually had to be destroyed when even Pakistan turned it down.

As these and many other initiatives blew up in Blagojevich's face, the governor withdrew more and more. He calls special sessions without showing up. He attends hockey games in Chicago while important votes are taken in Springfield. And, according to Flannery, he spends most of his "work" time at home. He is not connected to the process - and that is untenable. But why?

We are not trying to be flippant when we say this - the governor appears afraid. But you can't govern scared. And if you can't govern, you should not be governor.